More Than You Bargained For
by KillTheWhelp
Summary: Hostage Negotiation specialist Hunter McCarthy has been asked to join the BAU. [Takes place from Season One to Pre-Rossi] [Warnings for language, as well as talk of violence, of course]
1. Prologue

**I wiped the** sweat off my brow as I lay on my back. Sit-ups were never my favorite thing to do. Covering my hot face with my palms, I tried to ignore Morgan's motivational speech over the hustle and bustle of the gymnasium.

"…all about progress. You don't want to stay static, McCarthy. And most importantly—you don't want to let Hotch down," my new co-worker continued, his hands clamped down on my Nike sneakers.

"Fuck Hotch right now," I grumbled.

"I'm gonna go ahead and pretend those words never came out your mouth. Come on, McCarthy, just ten more," Morgan said. I could almost hear his smirk.

Taking a deep breath, I removed my hands from my face and crossed my arms over my chest.

"That's what I like to see. Come on, girl," Morgan gave me a dazzling smile. I would have swooned if I weren't too busy kicking myself for asking him to help me improve my shape a bit more. I'd gotten through the academy just fine, but Morgan had intensified everything.

"Ten," I counted, pulling my torso up to my knees.

"You got this, Mick," Morgan winked at me.

When I was first asked by Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner to join the Behavioral Analysis Unit after a stint with the Crisis Negotiation Unit, I was expecting a lot of things. But none of those things were falling in love.

Okay, maybe "love" isn't the right word.

I tried very hard to pretend Derek Morgan wasn't the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on. His smooth skin was the color of milk chocolate and it stretched tightly over the muscles he worked hard to cultivate. And he wasn't afraid to show them. Today he'd worn a sleeveless mesh shirt that displayed his arms in a most distracting manner.

"Five," I continued, my back returning to the mat. "I give up."

"That phrase does not exist in my vocabulary," Morgan squeezed my feet. "You're so close."

"Yet so far," I whimpered playfully. "Fine … Four."

My gray T-shirt was drenched in sweat and my brown hair was frizzing out of the braid I'd lassoed it into before the workout. Needless to say, I could not wait to take a shower.

"Two … and one. I'm proud of you, McCarthy," Morgan let go of my shoes and held his arms up to give me a double high-five. I half-heartedly returned it from my slump against the mat.

"You…are a sadist," I puffed, covering my eyes with the crook of my arm as Morgan stood up.

"Save the profiling for your first case," he said, taking my reluctant hands and lifting me to my feet.

I smirked. "As much as I hate your guts right now, I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to help me out."

"Any time," Morgan winked again and clapped my shoulder blade before heading to the men's locker room.

I watched as he jogged off, knowing how unethical it would be to pursue anything more than friendship with him. I'd let myself be close to him. I'd allow myself to trust him as a coworker, a teammate, and even a friend. He was to be a stone left unturned, but I'd be damned if he didn't give me butterflies in my stomach sometimes.

I was into older men anyway.

* * *

 **I hope you guys will like this! Anyone who had read my previous Rossi stories before I deleted them will (hopefully) get a kick out of these. I'm going to redo them later, I promise.**


	2. Extreme Aggressor

Case file in hand, I had been sent to collect Jason Gideon. I had only met him a few times during consultations, so I hoped he wouldn't be too annoyed that I interrupted his seminar.

Gideon had been the BAU Chief up until his nervous breakdown about six months before I had been invited to fill a slot in the unit. Something about a mad bomber in Boston who'd killed six of his agents and a hostage. I couldn't say I was surprised to hear he had post-traumatic stress disorder.

I opened the door, which made a louder noise than I wanted it to. Gideon, a middle-aged man with dark hair and eyes, was standing in front of a screen that was projecting a picture of one of the victims of the Footpath Killer (the nickname for an unknown subject, or "unsub" as we call them). A room full of trainees in powder blue polo shirts, as well as the FBI legend himself, all stared at me. I held up the file and wiggled it a little.

Gideon frowned, accentuating the deep set wrinkles in his face from this career. He glanced back at his students. "Excuse me," he said, ducking away from the screen.

"They're calling him the Seattle Strangler. Four victims in four months," I explained as Gideon and I stalked through the hallway. I had pulled out a crime scene photo and held it for the Senior Supervisory Special Agent to see. There was a young blonde woman who was found under an overpass. She had been tortured and there was a belt with a handle on it around her throat. "He keeps them alive for seven days. The handle serves as a crank."

"Allowing him to control the rate of suffocation," Gideon explained.

"To prolong it?" I asked.

"To enjoy it," he glimpsed down at the picture again. "Seattle's hit a wall?"

"Physical evidence is nonexistent. There are no tangible leads," I told him as he took the picture and file from my hand.

"And another girl is missing," he added, opening the door to his office.

I stepped in after him and he put his glasses on, the spectacles dangling close to the tip of his nose. Standing by a bookshelf, I watched as he examined the file, muttering softly to himself.

"I looked the case file over. I'll get some thoughts to you ASAP," he told me.

"You're gonna be with us in Seattle ASAP," Hotch said as he stalked into the office, Morgan and the young, weedy Dr. Spencer Reid in tow.

Gideon slowly looked up, taking his glasses off as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Then Derek held up a new picture.

"Twenty-three year-old Heather Woodland," he said, waiting for Gideon to take it from him.

"Before she left for lunch, she downloaded an email with a time-delayed virus attached. The killer's virus wiped out her hard drive and left this on the screen," Hotch presented him with another photograph.

Gideon started to read it, then exchanged glances with Hotch, pacing as he finally read it out loud, "'For Heaven's sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself.'" He stepped over to the framed picture on his own wall of the message in question. The caption under the photo said, 'William Heirens, The Lipstick Killer, 1945'.

"He never keeps them for more than seven days, which means we have fewer than thirty-six hours to find her," Hotch said once Gideon turned around.

"They want you back in the saddle. You ready?" Morgan asked.

"Looks like medical leave's over, boss," Reid piped up.

"They sure they want me?" Gideon looked at Hotch.

"The order came from the director," the latter nodded, a rare smile creeping up on his face.

Gideon turned and faced the corkboard in his office. "Then we better get started."

* * *

I slid out of the car and stepped onto the wet tarmac. It had been raining before we got to base our jet was sitting in and it added a chill in the early morning air. I zipped my jacket up as high as I could, hiding my chin behind the upright collar, and followed Gideon onto the aircraft. I tried not to eavesdrop on the woman from Senior Management who was asking Hotch to deliver a report on how well Gideon did on this case.

"His first victim was twenty-six year-old Melissa Kirsh," Reid said once we were settled and high in the sky, the case file open in his hands. "Stab wounds, strangulation—"

"Wait, wait. Back up, back up," Morgan interrupted from where he and Gideon were standing at the back of my seat. "He stabbed her…then strangled her to finish her off?"

"Other way around. Why do you think he started using the belt with the second murder?" Gideon asked.

"Strangulation with your bare hands is not as easy as one would believe," Reid answered. "He tried, probably found that it took too long…"

"So he stabbed her instead. Lovely," I interjected.

"And realized it would be hours cleaning up the blood," Hotch added.

"Next time, our boy's got a method—the belt," Morgan said.

"He's learning, perfecting his scenario," I crossed one leg over the other.

"Becoming a better killer," Gideon nodded from above my head.

* * *

We arrived at the FBI Northwest Field Division in Seattle later that morning. After trying my hardest to get a little shut-eye on the jet, I found myself rubbing at my eyes as we approached the glass doors. Morgan held the door open for everyone.

"Wake up, Mick," he muttered in my ear, a smirk on his face as he stepped in behind me.

I rolled my eyes with a grin and went through a metal detector. Once we were all through, Morgan smacked Reid on the shoulder and pointed at Gideon ahead of us.

"He never stands with his back to a window. When I was between him and a doorway, he asked me to move." His joking demeanor had changed in those few moments of silence. Now he seemed irritated.

"That's hyper vigiliance. It's not uncommon in post-traumatic stress disorder," Reid explained.

"Just how much disorder are we talking about?" Morgan asked.

"Morgan, it's been six months. Everything's okay," Hotch said from behind us. And then he shepherded us into a large room packed with cubicles. It looked a lot more hectic than ours in Quantico, with tons of people hustling and bustling about as Hotch began to speak and we shook hands with some of the other agents. "This is Special Agent Gideon; Special Agent Morgan, our expert on obsessional crimes; Special Agent McCarthy, our expert on hostage negotiations; Special Agent Reid—"

"Dr. Reid," Gideon corrected, taking off his trench coat.

"Dr. Reid, or expert on, well, everything. And after two years busting my butt in this office, I hope you remember me," Hotch continued, garnering a chuckle from the others who were gathering around for our debriefing.

"He's willing to travel with the body," Gideon said from the map.

"Then he drives a vehicle capable of concealing one," I deduced, standing before an easel with a giant notepad on it.

"One in seven-point-four drivers in Seattle owns an SUV," Reid said.

"Explorer with tinted windows," Morgan offered.

"Explorers rate higher with women."

"But how do we know it's his car? Ted Bundy drove a VW Bug."

"What about a Jeep Cherokee?" Hotch asked.

"Jeeps are more masculine," Reid told him.

"We all know how an unsub feels about asserting his masculinity," Gideon turned around.

"When did the Bureau become involved in the case?" Hotch asked.

"After the fourth body," the Assistant Special Agent in Charge said. "He dumped that one out of state."

"On purpose?" Hotch looked to Reid.

"If so, knowledge of law enforcement does suggest a criminal record," the latter answered, stepping forward.

"Or that he watches television," I bounced my eyebrows.

"May I?" Morgan gestured to the fuchsia colored folder in the ASAC's hands and started looking through it.

"So, you want to see our suspect list?" another agent asked Hotch.

"No, we won't look at a suspect list until after we come up with a profile. It keeps our perspective unbiased," he explained.

"When do we sit down with your task force?" Gideon wondered.

"Four o'clock," the other agent said.

I cocked a brow and Morgan looked up from the file.

"An accurate profile by four o'clock today?" Morgan asked.

"That's not a problem," Gideon strode across the room. He found a board featuring the latest deceased victim, Anne Cushing.

"Agent Gideon, where would you like to start?" Hotch asked.

The agent in question pointed at a picture on the board. "At the site of the last murder."

* * *

Morgan, Gideon, and a Seattle Police Department officer went to the crime scene, meanwhile I accompanied Reid and Hotch to Heather Woodland's home, where we met her brother David and her golden retriever. The dog did not take kindly to Reid.

"WOOF-WOOF!"

"Sandy, no-no-no-no-no," David, a cute redheaded man in a pink shirt, grabbed onto Sandy's collar. "I'm so sorry."

"No-no-no, it's okay," Hotch reassured him. "It's what we call the Reid effect. Happens with children too. I'm Agent Hotchner. These are Special Agents McCarthy and Dr. Reid."

"Oh, you look too young to have gone to medical school," David remarked, leading the dog further into the living room we were standing in.

"They're Ph.D.'s, three of them," Reid corrected.

"Are you a genius or somethin'?"

"I-I-I don't believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified, but I do have an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and can read 20,000 words per minute."

David gave him one of the blankest looks I'd ever seen.

"Yes, I'm a genius," Reid added, sauntering off.

The dog barked and I looked down at her.

"Sandy, you get a lot of attention, don't you?" I crouched and started scratching behind her ears. She licked my cheek and I grinned before standing back up and wiping the slobber off my face.

"Yeah, Heather loves this dog," David told me. "I feed her when Heather's away. Usually she's fine, but…I dunno. Lately she won't eat. It's almost like she can sense something's wrong."

"Not sense, smell," Reid explained. "Our apocrine sweat gland releases secretions in response to emotional stress."

"Sandy's worried because she knows you are," Hotch said in layman's terms.

"David, does your sister drive a Datsun Z?" Reid asked, looking through a bunch of pictures in one of the corners of the room.

"No, but she's in the market for one. How'd you know?" David questioned. Reid held up a flyer for one and the dog barked yet again. "Come on, Sandy," he muttered, leading the dog out of the room.

"There's an immediate relationship established between a buyer and a seller, a level of trust," Reid said once Hotch and I stepped closer to him. "If I want to coax a young woman into my car…"

"Offer her a test drive," I nodded.

* * *

"Okay, then how 'bout the fact that on one hand we have paranoid psychosis," Morgan said, tossing a baseball in the air as he paced around the office room we were meeting in, "but the autopsy protocol says what?"

Spinning in an office chair, Reid answered, "Adhesive residue shows he put layer after layer of duct tape over his victims' eyes."

"He knows he wants to kill them, but he still covers their eyes," Morgan continued.

"He doesn't want them to look at him, apparently," I added, sitting at the table next to Hotch.

"Okay, but then he takes the body and dumps it right out in the open, murder weapon nearby."

"That's not the M.O. of a paranoid convinced he's being watched or surveilled," Reid pointed out.

"Paranoid psychosis, but behavior that's not paranoid."

"Maybe he's schizophrenic," Hotch offered.

"Maybe we just don't have enough for a complete profile."

"We have enough to narrow our list of suspects."

"We have less than twelve hours to find this woman," I chewed my lip.

"We don't know exactly what—"

"Hey, Hotch, we don't know anything!" Morgan said, exasperated.

"Alright, enough," Gideon interrupted from the board he was staring at in the back of the room. "Let's tell them we're ready." Then he turned and started to head out the door.

"We're ready?" Morgan echoed, feeling anything but. He glanced at me and then looked at Reid, who was scribbling something down on a pad of paper. "Mick, Reid…you're good with this?"

I shrugged.

"We got a woman who's only got a few hours left to live, an incomplete profile, and a unit chief who's on the verge of a nervous breakdown," Morgan ranted as Gideon came back in to grab something.

Unperturbed, Gideon interjected, "They don't call them nervous breakdowns anymore," before exiting the office again.

"It's called a major depressive episode," the young doctor said.

"I know, Reid…" Morgan side-eyed him.

* * *

"The unidentified subject is white and in his late twenties. He's someone you wouldn't notice at first. He's someone who'd blend into any crowd. The violent nature of the crime suggests a previous criminal record—petty crimes, maybe auto theft. We've classified him as an organized killer: careful, psychopathic as opposed to psychotic. He follows the news, has good hygiene, he's smart. 'Cause he's smart, the only physical evidence you'll find is what he wants you to find. He's mobile, car in good condition; our guess, Jeep Cherokee, tinted windows. The murders have all involved rape. But rape without penetration is a form of piquerism, and that tells us he is sexually inadequate. Psychiatric evaluations will show a history of paranoia stemming from a childhood trauma—death of a parent or family member. And now he feels persecuted and watched. Murder gives him a sense of power. Organized killers have a fascination with law enforcement. They will inject themselves into the investigation. They will even come forward as witnesses to see just how much the police really know. That makes them feel powerful, in control. Which is why I also think—in fact, I know," Gideon said, pacing around the room as he delivered the profile, "you have already interviewed him."

* * *

The agents of Seattle narrowed down a name—Richard Slessman. He was a young man who lived with his family down the street from an empty house, which we used to sting him out. We had sent out a young female agent by the name of Elle Greenaway to ask if he could help accompany her to the house because she'd been "housesitting" and she found "the door wide open". Meanwhile, Gideon and I were hiding out in the darkness with a SWAT team, waiting for them to enter. I was surprised that he'd asked me to join him, but I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to work with one of the two most legendary profilers I'd ever heard of.

Even though we barely played any role in this capture.

Sure enough, the door soon creaked open, and a beam of light flashed into the house. "Hello?" called out a young man's voice. They came closer, two figures in the darkness. "Hello?"

"FREEZE!"

"FBI!"

"FREEZE!"

"DOWN, NOW!"

The SWAT team pointed their weapons at the young man and Greenaway, a pretty brunette, pushed him onto an ottoman.

"Richard Slessman," she said, pulling out a pair of handcuffs, "FBI. You are under arrest for the murder…"

I tuned out and followed Gideon as he stepped closer to Richard, who looked like the human equivalent of a meerkat. The killer stared coldly at Gideon, a laser pointed at his forehead. Shortly after he'd been apprehended, Gideon and I met with Hotch outside of the Slessman residence and entered the house.

"I'm going up," Hotch said, ascending the staircase just beyond the front door.

"There's no sign of the girl here," Reid came out from the living room to join Gideon and me. "We can arrest him with probable cause, but we won't be able to hold him. Slessman's been at the top of the suspect list."

Gideon stared into the kitchen where an old woman sat talking to police, a younger woman standing at her shoulder with a child on her hip. "Is that the mother?" he asked.

"Grandmother," said Greenaway, stepping out in front of Gideon. "The mother died in a fire when he was thirteen."

"Probably not the only fire in his childhood," I remarked, following the older man into the dining room Greenaway had just stepped out of. There stood Morgan, looking at photographs.

"Before his Son of Sam murders, David Berkowitz set a multitude of fires," Reid said.

"Exactly how much is a multitude?" Morgan asked.

"According to his diary, one thousand four hundred and—"

"Eighty-eight," Greenaway filled in.

"Luring him out was your idea, right? Greenaway?" Gideon asked.

"Elle. I don't send a SWAT team into a house with children," she shook her head.

"Hotch says your background is in sex offender cases. What can you tell us?"

"The last four murders show he's an anger-excitation rapist. He'll keep a victim for a couple of days. He-he probably records or videotapes them so that he can keep reliving the fantasy."

"You okay with Hotch being in on the interview?"

"I'd like him to lead, actually," Greenaway admitted.

"Fine," Gideon agreed. "But hold off. Slessman's done time and he knows the process. And all you will get now is a demand for a lawyer." He stepped over to the staircase and shouted up it. "Hotch, let's check out the garage, then you can show me what you've got."

I glanced at Greenaway before I started to head up the stairs and she looked a bit crestfallen.

"Next time, show a little leg," Morgan joked, following me.

"Morgan," Greenaway climbed up the stairs after us, "the only time you're gonna see a little leg from me is when I'm about to kick your ass."

I grinned.

"I still teach hand-to-hand over at Quantico if you need a little brush-up training," Morgan told her from where we were leaning on the banister.

"Seriously, I want that opening at BAU. You got any advice?" she asked, looking at me too.

"My best advice: Trust your instincts," I nodded, stepping forward to enter Richard's bedroom. I scanned his flowery wallpaper and juvenile décor—the man had a model airplane mounted above his bed for God's sake. "Something's not right about this," I commented to Morgan, who was standing at my elbow. My eyes locked on Richard's extensive CD collection.

"This is a boy's room," Morgan added. "Not a man's."

Two police officers came in and set about turning on Richard's computer. "Log-in password," one of them said, handing the other a small piece of paper.

"No-no!" Morgan's head snapped to the computer and his eyes widened in a moment of panic as the officer typed in what had been written on the piece of paper. "Wait-wait!" But he was too late to stop the officer from entering the password. The screen fizzled out into a static mess. "D'ah!" he sighed, shaking a fist.

"It's not turning back on," the officer said dumbly.

"Yeah, and it won't," Morgan chided. "It was a false password."

He exchanged glances with me and I had to fight back a smirk at his annoyance. I tuned out again when he asked the officers to get him a special laptop to hook up to Richard's computer.

"Other than foolish moments like this, how're you liking the BAU?" he asked, dipping his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket.

"Well, after only a couple of cases I can say that so far it's interesting," I shrugged, playing with my hair absentmindedly as I looked around the room. "I'll give you my full report later."

Once the two officers delivered it, Morgan began setting up the laptop. Brains and brawn. A winning combination, I thought to myself in vain as I sat down on Richard's bed. I rolled the sleeves of my white blouse up to my elbows, cuffing my black sweater, and smoothed out a wrinkle on the leg of my gray slacks.

"Okay, here we go," Morgan murmured to himself as Greenaway, Gideon, and Reid came into the bedroom. The laptop started making a rapid tinkling sound.

"What's the number six at the bottom of the screen?" Greenaway asked from beside Morgan.

"The number of password attempts before the program wipes the hard drive," he answered.

"There could be an email or a journal in the computer—something that tells us where Heather is. Do you think you can break in?" she wondered.

"In six tries?" Morgan huffed.

"'Try again. Fail again,'" Gideon quoted. "'Fail better.'"

"Samuel Beckett," Reid added.

Morgan scoffed. "'Try not. Do or do not,'" he retorted.

Gideon looked wildly confused.

"Yoda," Reid told him.

Gideon turned away and looked at the small bookshelf on the wall behind him. I stood up and went to his elbow as he quickly grabbed one of the books and opened it up. He turned his back to me (I'm not sure if he really noticed I had been there) and flipped open the book before I got a good look at it. Then he stopped on something that made him pause. I noticed that Reid was staring down at the page and I stepped over to see that it was a newspaper clipping of the event in Boston that had sent Gideon on his breakdown. There was a picture of him, blood on his pants and hands, and he was being led away by another man. The headline said, "Blast Kills Six" in bolded print.

He looked up at Reid, who had concern on his face, then he flashed his eyes to me. "I wanna talk to him."

* * *

Gideon, Greenaway, Reid, and Hotch went back to the Field Division, leaving a few men, Morgan, and myself at the Slessman house. I had gone to look around the furnished attic, where Richard had been playing Go with himself. I hoped to find maybe a clue as to what the password might be, but came up with nothing. When I came back down to the bedroom, I found Morgan on his phone.

"Hey, it's Morgan," he said. "Need you to work me some magic here. I got a program called Deadbolt Defense and a girl with only a couple hours to live, so what do you know?" I watched as his face fell. "I thought I was calling the office of supreme genius … Thanks anyway."

"Garcia had nothing?" I folded my arms across my chest, putting my weight on my right leg.

"Babygirl failed me," Morgan sighed, swiveling to look at me. He had something of a platonically flirtatious relationship with our fabulously flamboyant Technical Analyst, Penelope Garcia. "Did you find anything upstairs?"

"Other than jack shit?" I cocked my eyebrow. "There's gotta be something here that can help us."

"I like to role play sometimes," he said.

"Are you confessing to me that you're a LARPer or just really kinky?" I smirked.

"Funny, Mick," he gave me a look. "Let's try to get into Slessman's head."

He headed into the bathroom, probably to look for any medications. I peered through Richard's CD collection and found a wide variety of metal and all its subgenres. There were a few names I even recognized from a darker period in my adolescence.

"My name is Richard Slessman and I have trouble sleeping," Morgan poked his head through the doorway, shaking a bottle of pills before slipping back into the bathroom to put them away. He reentered the room and lay down on the bed exactly where Richard probably slept. He closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and sighed, "Okay, what do I do when I'm trying to get to sleep?"

"Sorry to interrupt you over there, Sless, but he probably tries to listen to music," I held up a Monster Magnet CD, and then pointed to another stack of music in the display above Morgan's head. There was also a CD player that Morgan pulled out and opened up.

He stood abruptly and came to my side. "Guys, a little help," he called out to the other officers and agents still at the house with us. Morgan grabbed onto a stack of discs and handed them to me, grabbing another for himself. "We're going through every one of these CDs—scratches, wear-and-tear, I wanna know which CD he plays the most, let's go. Good work, Mick," he nudged me with his elbow and sat down on the bed.

* * *

Reid eventually showed up to help out and he littered the room with CD cases and discs. I sat in silence with him on the mattress after the discs didn't help much. Deciding I'd be much more help up in the attic with Morgan than pretending I could keep up with Reid's mental process, I carefully left the room and climbed the stairs.

"I need a password. I need a password. What am I looking for? What am I looking for? What could I possibly be looking for?" Morgan was pacing, his tie loosened and his suit jacket taken off in despair. "Please give me some good news," he sighed, sinking into a sea foam green arm chair that sat behind an opened laptop.

"I don't have a solid notion, but it's an idea. This guy listens to so much Metallica he could be accused of Satanism in Arkansas," I said, referencing the West Memphis 3. "Maybe the password has to do with them. Something angsty like 'Sanitarium' or whatever."

"The music led us nowhere, McCarthy. Do you feel confident enough about that to risk one of our tries?" he asked, clearly not a fan of my idea.

"Not anymore," I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Morgan sighed and put his head back in the chair.

Reid came into the attic, fiddling with a bent paperclip. "I've been thinking about the CDs."

"Oh, Reid, come on, we tried the CDs. We searched, sifted, and sorted through every one of this guy's head-bangin' heavy metal collection," Morgan sounded exasperated as Reid crouched beside the laptop, tinkering with the laptop and the paperclip.

"We gotta find something or this girl is dead," I frowned, wracking my brain.

"Think we may have missed the obvious," Reid said, opening the disc compartment.

"What are you doin'?" Morgan asked.

I stepped closer, and sure enough, a Metallica CD slid out into the open. I gave Morgan a look, but he was too excited by this discovery to even think about being sheepish.

"Reid, what made you think of this?" Morgan asked.

"It was the only empty case," he answered, pulling out said case from his pocket.

"Alright, I'm an insomniac who listens to Metallica to go to sleep at night," Morgan said, holding both the CD and the case in his respective hands. "What song could possibly speak to me?"

"'Enter Sandman'," I blurted out, annoyed that I didn't think of that song first.

* * *

"Gideon, Heather's alive," I said into my phone.

"How do you know?" the seasoned agent asked.

"Because we're watching her right now," I said, crouching in front of the laptop, staring at the live video with the guys and two other agents. "There's a feed on Slessman's computer. She's in a small cage and she's alone. For now, anyway."

"Are there any indicators of her location, McCarthy?"

I scanned the computer screen, searching for some kind of sign. "Nothing that pops out. But we'll keep looking."

"Do it quick and keep me updated," Gideon said before hanging up.

The other agents had cleared out at this point, looking for clues that might point to where Heather Woodland was hidden. The video turned into a series of still shots of the happenings in the chamber.

"Morgan, can you show me the last twelve images lined up next to each other?" Reid asked, leaning over Derek's shoulder. I leaned over the other to help.

"Yeah," Morgan said, pulling up a grid of pictures.

"Right there. Right there," Reid pointed at the screen. "You see that? The lightbulb hanging from the wire?"

"What about it?" I asked.

"It's shifting positions, like it's swaying. Like the earth is tilting."

"Not the earth, Doc," Morgan said softly. "The ocean." He pulled out his cell phone and called Hotch to tell him that Heather was on a boat. "It's on a pier or a dock. He wouldn't be able to transmit the webcam image from the middle of the ocean … It's the best we got, Hotch. But even if we're right, getting the exact location is on you, my friend … To work me a little magic."

I kept my eye on the feed as new images began to upload. Suddenly, a man came on the screen, and he definitely wasn't Richard Slessman. "Morgan, Reid, he's inside."

"Get Elle on the phone," Morgan demanded as we watched the man start to open the cage. Reid followed his orders and called Greenaway. Morgan took the phone and paced around the attic. "Listen to me, you need to wait for backup … And if we had waited in Boston—" He hung up and glared at me.

"What?" I furrowed my brow, looking up from the laptop just as the unsub was about to pull Heather out of the cage.

"She's takin' your advice."

* * *

I watched as Gideon talked comfortingly to Heather Woodland in her stretcher. She was about to be put in an ambulance. Gideon himself had a bloody bandage wrapped around his left arm, as he'd been shot by Richard's partner, "Tiny" Tim Vogel. Vogel had been a prison guard who'd protected Mr. Slessman and groomed him into thinking he owed him his help. Gideon had provoked Vogel to shoot before he could kill Heather and Elle gunned him down.

Morgan was leaning against part of the dock at the shipyard where everything had gone down, Hotch and me standing by him. The sky was gray in the early morning light and the air was cold. I bundled up in my jacket, but my heart was warmed when I saw Gideon stroke Heather's hair before stepping away. He truly cared about the victims, even after all the trauma he'd been put through in recent months.

"So what kind of report do they want on him?" I asked, my eyes following the man in question as he walked down the ramp and onto the dock.

"I suppose whether he's fit to be a field agent," Hotch responded. "You know, Haley and I were looking at a baby names book."

Did I forget to mention that Hotch and his wife were expecting a son?

"Guess what Gideon means in Hebrew."

"Mighty warrior," Reid filled in, stepping past us to follow Gideon. "Appropriate."

Morgan snickered. "So what are you gonna tell them?"

"What would you say?" Hotch asked. Morgan looked at the dock in contemplation.

"Gideon saved her life. That's good enough for me."


	3. Compulsion

**Word going around** the office at Quantico said that our very own Jason Gideon had gotten up close and personal with the stammering convenience store clerk, also known as the Footpath Killer. And he'd gotten away with his life by telling the man the reason why he stutters. And while a bunch of our co-workers were asking him how it went down, I found myself in Aaron Hotchner's office. He'd pulled me away from my desk to have a chat. We'd barely had a chance to talk one-one-one since he'd offered me the job, so I hoped he only had nice things to say.

"How do you think you're adjusting to the new position, McCarthy?" he asked me.

"I like it," I told him. "It's a change, but definitely a welcome one. Although sometimes I find that I have doubts."

"About what?"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "If I'm good enough to be here with you guys. Negotiations I can do. I mean, I learned from the best. I've seen David Rossi speak, I've read his books, I took classes all but based on him and his work. I was confident in the CNU, but here not as much. Some days I feel good, but other days…"

"Two things, McCarthy: One, you're still relatively new. It'll come to you just as negotiations did. I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't have faith in your abilities. Two, Rossi also started the BAU with Gideon. If he could make the transition, let alone create a unit devoted to it, you can do it too," Hotch told me.

"Thanks, Hotch," I smiled. "I feel better now."

"And if you're still having doubts and feel the burning need for more reassurance, I have Dave's personal number. I can get him in contact with you," he added. "I'm sure he'd be glad to talk with you."

I couldn't hold back the grin that took over my face. The agent we were speaking of was a legend in both hostage negotiations and profiling, and he was also one of my personal heroes. I had always hoped to meet him (well, other than a quick, "hi, your work has meant so much to me, please sign this to Hunter McCarthy" at a book signing), but he had retired early. Part of me also hoped he'd come back to the BAU someday. I would love to get inside his head.

"My only concern going forward is that your doubts might cloud your judgment. I can't have you out in the field if you're going to be constantly second-guessing yourself," Hotch brought me back to reality.

"Of course," I nodded. "Maybe I'm just a little intimidated by Gideon."

"He tends to have that effect on people," Hotch bounced his eyebrows and I smirked. "Don't let it get to you. You are an asset to this team. And you need to start believing that."

"Thank you, sir."

I stood up just as a courier came in with a small package for Hotch. I bowed out and traveled down the stairs to my desk where I had a half-finished case report waiting for me on my computer.

"Reid, are you playing chess by yourself?" I asked, grinning at the doctor at the desk across from me. He seemed to have a travel-sized version of the game. "I've never been patient enough to figure out how to play. I'd rather play Phase-10 or something."

"I can teach you some time, i-if you like," Reid offered.

"I might take you up on that," I smiled. "But don't get mad if I just fool around with the horse pieces."

"They're actually called knights."

"Aha," I nodded slowly. "Maybe I'm not quite ready, then."

Morgan snickered from his desk not too far away. "What did Hotch want?"

"He wanted to tell me that he was going to cut everyone from the unit except me because I'm so incredible at this job," I deadpanned.

Before Morgan could press me for more details, Gideon came down from his office and stopped by Reid's desk, moving a piece on the board. "Check. Checkmate in three moves," he said, sauntering off.

"…What?" Reid furrowed his brow, showing a rare sign of confusion. He looked as though his life had gone crashing down in front of him.

"You know, you'll beat him when you start learning," Morgan leaned back in his swivel chair.

"Learning what?" Reid asked.

Morgan looked back at his office work. "To think _out_ side of the box."

"Question for you," Elle asked as she descended the stairs. She had just exited Gideon's office, no doubt after asking him about the aforementioned stammering convenience store clerk.

"Shoot," I turned to her.

"The Footpath Killer. _Why_ did he stutter?" she came to sit on the desk beside me.

"Come on, Elle, we've all asked him and he won't say," Morgan leaned back again.

"He wants us to figure it out, the bastard," I added, picking up the blue and green Koosh ball on my desk. I absentmindedly began to play with the rubber filaments.

"Okay. I'm up for a challenge," Elle smirked.

"Good," said one of the prettiest and nicest blonde women I'd ever met, "because these go to you. Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, or JJ, if you like," JJ put her stack of files down on the desk and shook Elle's hand.

"Elle," the other replied.

"Greenaway—highest number of solved cases in Seattle three years running. Specialty in sex offender cases," JJ recited.

Elle paused. "Not bad."

"Well, I'm the Unit Liaison," JJ began to walk up the stairs, but kept talking. "My specialty is untangling bureaucratic knots. You'll probably be talking to me a lot. My door's always open. Mostly because I'm never in my office, so just call me on my cell, okay? We'll talk."

JJ crossed paths with a fast-paced Hotch who was heading to the bullpen. They exchanged words, but I couldn't hear them.

"BAU team, can you meet me in the conference room, please?" Hotch called out to us, holding a tape in his hand. "I need to show you something."

I put the Koosh ball down, got up from my desk, and led the way up the stairs to follow Hotch. I grabbed one of the swivel chairs and sat around the table. As soon as everyone else had joined us, Hotch began to explain.

"This is from the Phoenix office. Bradshaw College in Tempe, six fires in seven months," he said.

"Who recorded it?" Gideon asked.

"Uh, a student with a digital camcorder," JJ told him. "He was watching a fire in the building across from their dorm. The other person you'll see is his roommate, twenty year-old Matthew Rowland." She grabbed a remote and turned on the large screen on one of the walls.

" _What? This is crazy_ ," said a young man's voice as the camera zoomed in on a fire blazing from across the way. " _Hey, Matt, get over here. You've gotta see this, the building's on fire._ "

" _Bro, you gettin' this?_ " another boy said excitedly, popping his head in front of the camera.

"Is that the kid?" Gideon wondered.

"Yeah, that's him," Hotch spoke over more dialogue between the boys.

" _Ah, relax, man. There's always fires during rush week_ ," the one holding the camera said. He was focusing on Matthew's face.

" _Yeah, but that's pretty big_ ," Matthew began to move. " _Dude, over here. Check this out_." He bent over by their door to see a shiny substance pouring in from underneath it.

" _What is it?_ "

" _I don't know, but it's comin' underneath the door_."

" _Is someone in the hallway?_ "

The door handle turned a few times.

" _Hey, someone's trying to get in_ ," Matthew said.

" _Hey, man, you should get away from there—_ "

" _Whoa!_ "

A clear liquid spilled in from under the doorway.

" _Oh my God,_ " said the cameraman.

" _It smells like gas_ ," Matthew commented a split second before his body lit up in flames. I winced. I didn't particularly enjoy fire. " _Oh, God! GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD, AAH!_ " The camera dropped and Matthew threw himself to the floor. The cameraman frantically tried to extinguish the flames with a blanket, to no avail. " _AAH, PUT ME OUT! OH MY GOD! OH GOD! HELP!_ "

* * *

"There are two common stressors for a serial arsonist," Reid said, setting up his travel-sized chessboard on the jet. He and I were sitting on the same side of a table in padded swiveling chairs.

"Loss of job and loss of love," I filled in, opening up my case file.

"When was the first fire set?" Morgan asked from his chair further past our table.

"March. Uh, the next one was in May," Hotch told him, flicking through his own file as he sat at a two-person table near Morgan. "And the third one wasn't until September. Then two weeks later there were three in one night."

"He's speeding up. Fires are closer together," Gideon pointed out. He was sitting across from Hotch.

"Hey, Reid, you got a statistic on arsonists?" Morgan asked, putting together a spreadsheet.

"Eighty-two percent are white males between seventeen and twenty-seven," the genius said as he started to play chess. "Female arsonists are far less-likely, their motive typically being revenge."

"Sounds like our boy's a student," I commented.

"Oh, don't be so sure," Gideon looked at me, his glasses very far down his nose. "You rely too much on precedent, you don't allow for the unexpected."

I nodded. That sounded like advice I'd take to my grave.

"If he went from one fire to setting one fire to three in two weeks' time…" Gideon continued.

"Rapid escalation," Hotch said.

"He's gone from the power to damage a building to something far more satisfying—the power over life and death. Who're we talking to first?"

"Dean of Students, Ellen Turner."

* * *

I pulled the key out of the ignition and slid out from behind the wheel of the Chevy Suburban. We had just pulled up at Bradshaw College.

"No badges," Gideon ordered, heading down a small flight of stairs. "I don't wanna satisfy the unsub's need for attention by letting him know we've got the FBI here. Try not to look official."

Now that I was in the shade, I slid my aviators up onto my head and glanced down at my vertically striped blouse and slacks. Gideon turned and looked back at us. Elle, Morgan, and Hotch were wearing suits with their black sunglasses. Reid was wearing a short-sleeved button-up and tie. None of us looked nearly as casual as Gideon.

"Try to look _less_ official," he corrected himself, entering the school.

* * *

"Obviously I'd rather be meeting you under different circumstances," Ellen Turner said, showing us to the latest crime scene. "This is Fire Inspector Zhang," she gestured to the Asian man walking with us.

"This morning the chemistry department reported several bottles of highly flammable chemicals missing," he told us.

"I'm prepared to evacuate this campus," Ellen remarked as Gideon and Hotch held a pair of double doors open for her. "Thank you."

"Uh, that brings with it its own problems," Hotch said.

"You might evacuate the arsonist as well," Gideon pointed out.

"Then the case goes unsolved. The campus is reopened, but the fires start up again," Elle added.

"Wait, Hotch, Gideon, hold on a second," Morgan said, his file open in his hands. We all stopped in the middle of the lobby we were in. Morgan looked at Zhang. "You said the chemicals were missing today."

"Uh-huh," Zhang nodded.

"It says here that one of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the grounds keeping facility. How long after it disappeared was the fire was set?" Morgan asked.

"One day," Ellen said.

Gideon and Hotch stepped away from us, leaving Ellen staring back at them.

* * *

Hotch, Reid, and I arrived on Matthew's floor and found the charred entryway of his room. What was left of the door was wrapped in police tape. Reid pulled it off and I stepped inside after him.

"Door was locked," Hotch commented, leaning against the jamb.

"Matthew Rowland and his roommate watched as the doorknob turned against the lock," Reid crossed his arms.

"But the unsub couldn't get in," I said.

"So he pours the accelerant into the room from the hallway," Reid continued.

"Which means he couldn't see the fire," Hotch furrowed his dark brow.

"But he could hear Matthew Rowling screaming."

"Yeah, but not for long. He would've left quickly."

"To avoid being spotted," I took my sunglasses off the top of my head and clipped them in the neckline of my blouse. I gathered my long hair into my hands and started to braid it. It was hot in Arizona.

"It doesn't make sense," Hotch came inside.

"Pyromania as a mental disorder may just be a simple myth, but we do know from precedent that serial arsonists derive pleasure from pathological fire-setting," Reid pointed out.

"Sex and power," I nodded, chewing the corner of my lip. Something wasn't adding up. "But a serial arsonist wouldn't just set a fire and walk away."

"He needs to experience it," Hotch said.

"So why would he set a fire he couldn't watch?" Reid wondered.

* * *

"They turned the water off just before the fire," Zhang told us, opening a cardboard box on the table in the small room we were all standing in. "The last three were set with these. Two devices, simultaneous ignition."

I peered over Elle's shoulder and looked at said devices. They were blue and mangled. One of them even looked like a GameCube controller, but they were actually road flares.

"There _was_ no device used on Matthew Rowland," Gideon stood up. "Unsub set that one manually?" He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his wire-rim glasses.

"He wanted to be there, to enjoy the kid's death," Morgan theorized.

"Not necessarily," Hotch said.

"Well, if the target was Matthew Rowland, then why set the other two fires?" Elle asked.

"Motives for arson are relatively simple. There's vandalism, crime concealment, political statement, profit…" Reid explained.

"And revenge," Hotch added.

"We interviewed Matthew Rowland's roommate. He said Matthew was very well-liked," Zhang said. "No reason for revenge."

"What about vandalism?" Ellen suggested.

"No, the fires are too sophisticated. And if he's trying to make a political statement, he's not being too clear about it," I told her.

Gideon looked at me from over the glasses on the tip of his nose. I couldn't tell if he was displeased with my statement or if he was agreeing with it. But I wasn't going to let this intimidate me. Not after that talk with Hotch.

"There's an underlying strategy to this case," he said, picking up one of the objects in the box. "Matthew, firefighters, injured victims. To the unsub, they're not people. They're—"

"They're objects," Hotch said.

"More like, uh—"

"Chess pieces," Reid interjected. Gideon looked up at him and tossed the object back into the box.

* * *

I exited the building we had set up shop in, Morgan and Elle in front of me. We were about to meet Gideon while he talked to Ellen. I thought I could faintly hear the sound of an alarm coming from that particular building. I looked up and saw smoke pouring out of the roof. Students were running down the exterior stairs in panic. The unsub had struck again.

God, I really hated fire.

Morgan, Elle, and I rushed down the remaining stairs and ran across the campus. The former football star raced ahead, yelling for the students to get out of the way, leaving Elle and me to direct them away from the building. Morgan even dared go into the building to help out. I looked around to see if I could find other people on our team. I found Hotch running over the quad. But what was really strange was that I saw Ellen by herself.

"Where's Gideon?" I turned to Elle.

An ambulance drove up to the building. Above the vehicle I could see Morgan dragging the agent in question out onto the stairs. Gideon fought him off, clearly reluctant to leave. But Morgan was stronger than him (and most people). He restrained Gideon against the railing, his forearm against the older man's throat for a moment.

"He might be watching," Hotch stepped over, just as Reid had jogged nearby too. Hotch handed her a camera. "Elle, take pictures—as many as you can."

"You got it," she said, following his orders and aiming the camera at the students.

I took my aviators out of my shirt and put them on my face. I began to scan the crowd. I looked at all the men and tried to pinpoint who was the least frightened by this event, or who might have even been enjoying it. And in looking around I saw that everyone else on our team was doing this as well. Even the sooty Gideon leaning against the brick wall of the building.

Later that night we found out that the fire had claimed the life of a professor, and Gideon had apparently tried in vain to save him when Morgan pulled him away. We ordered police and security to interview everyone who had been in the building and were now strongly considering evacuating the school, even though it might accelerate the unsub's timeline.

We all sat in the room we were working out of, looking over the pictures Elle took. Both Gideon and Morgan had changed into different shirts—a brown tee for Gideon and a light gray polo for Morgan. Hotch was not looking very hopeful.

"We've been at this all night and we've got nothin'," Morgan lamented, pacing around the room. He picked up one of the pictures on the table. "Look at these expressions." He put it down again. "We got fear, a touch of horror, even a little bit of panic. Where's the guy gettin' off?"

"When asked about his motives, Peter Dinsdale said, 'I am devoted to fire. Fire is my master'," Reid said.

"Okay, so who's our boy's master?" Morgan asked, stepping over to the bulletin board. "Ten-thousand plus students," he pulled out a lighter from his pocket and stared at the board as if he were imagining himself in the quad with his lighter. Then he turned around. "And one has a serious fascination with fire."

"Fire-starting is one third of the homicidal triad," I mentioned as he put out the lighter. "An early predictor of adult dissociative criminal behavior. If we looked into his childhood, we'd probably find all three. Bedwetting and cruelty to animals."

"Absent or abusive father, trouble with the opposite sex, chronic low self-esteem," Gideon rubbed at his face. "M.O. would be dynamic; evolving, as the fire setting escalates, they thrive on panic, fear. It's just the standard profile of a serial arsonist."

"Based on hundreds of interviews," Reid supported that claim.

"Based on precedent," Morgan added from the chair he was now sitting in.

"Everything the unsub should be, according to research," Elle said.

"We're off the mark," Hotch said in a soft voice.

"Because of two missing elements," Gideon responded.

"Sex and power," Morgan waved his hand that was holding the lighter. "The two motives that drive a serial arsonist."

"And without 'em, we do not have a profile."

* * *

While we'd been talking, a student from the chemistry club or something had spoken to Ellen. He'd said that they knew how the unsub committed the crimes and could help out. I went with Hotch and Reid to go to their lab. On the way over, Reid was a few steps ahead, leaving Hotch and me to walk stride-by-stride.

"I hope I don't seem patronizing when I tell you that I'm proud of you," he said in a low voice.

The corners of my mouth curled upwards into a tiny smile. "No, I appreciate it. Thank you."

"Especially considering your fear of fire."

I gulped, not wanting to talk about it. "I, uh, don't know if I'd really consider it a _fear_ , per se. More like an _aversion_ to it. For understandable reasons, of course."

"Of course. But I applaud you for not letting it get in the way of the investigation," Hotch continued.

"Please, Hotch," I smirked at him, putting my hand on his shoulder. "I'm a professional. I leave my baggage at the door."

At least, I try to.

We entered the lab after Reid and met with Zhang. I stood with the latter near the wall. Reid stood behind a table at the head of the room. There were only four students in there—three girls and the boy who spoke to Ellen, Jeremy.

"Reid," Hotch went over to the young doctor, who was fiddling around with some equipment. "Since you're more their age, why don't you do the talking?"

Reid seemed taken aback. Public speaking wasn't exactly his strong suit. But when Hotch came to stand next to me, Reid began talking.

"Ahem. Uh, h-h-hi, guys. My name's, uh, S-Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm a, uh, h-agent with the BAU—the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI," he began step out from behind the desk, "which, um, i-it used to be called B _S_ U, the Behavioral _Science_ Unit, but not anymore. They changed it to the BAU. Um, it's part of the NCAVC—the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime—which is also part of this thing called the CIRG—the, uh, Critical Incident Response Group—"

I exchanged glances with Hotch, who stepped forward in order to cut off our rambling teammate.

"What he's trying to say is we'd love to know how you can help us."

I smiled at Reid. He looked a little sheepish, holding a lightbulb in his pale hands. Reid was a sweetheart, if not a little socially awkward. But I guess that's what you get when you're a child prodigy.

Jeremy stood up. "May I, please?" He gestured to the lightbulb, which Reid gave to him. "Thank you. See this?" He held up the bulb so we could see it, pointing at it. "Drill a hole in the side, fill it with gasoline or whatever's good and flammable. Turn the light on. Boom."

Reid looked at Jeremy, then at me, then at Hotch.

"That _is_ what went down, didn't it?"

"This stuff's all over the 'net," piped up the girl in the very back. She snickered. "Wanna know how to make a Molotov cocktail that sets itself on fire? Potassium, sulfur…and normal sugar." The girl appeared to be amused, holding up three fingers. "Sugar-sugar, which is—"

"Not exactly plutonium," Jeremy smirked, just as the girl rotated a ring on her finger a few times. "You could get the stuff anywhere."

"Sugar from the supermarket," the girl continued. There was something kind of strange about her.

"But you don't need to be a chem major to know that," I chewed my lip.

"Do you think it's a chem student?" Zhang asked her.

"You wanna know what I think?" Jeremy said with a smile on his face. He slowly ambled towards us. "I _think_ ," he held the lightbulb up to his forehead, "it would be a good time to take the semester off." He pressed the object into Reid's chest.

I raised a brow. Was that a warning?

* * *

"Hold on," Jeremy said after Hotch tried to press a button in the elevator. He reached his key out and unlocked a compartment on the panel. "You need a key to get it movin' after ten PM."

"So what are you still doin' here?" Hotch asked him. I could feel a little suspicion coming from him.

"Oh, I can't leave. We've all got projects," he scoffed. "You know how to solve the three body problem?"

I noticed Reid nodding his head beside me.

"Computing the mutual gravitational interaction between the earth, sun, and moon?"

Hotch looked back at Reid, who was still nodding.

* * *

" _Charon. I do this for Charon_ ," said the digitally-altered raspy voice on the recording. Someone had left this on our tip hotline.

"Play it again," Gideon requested softly.

"The call came from the office right next to Wallace's five minutes before the fire was started," Morgan said, referring to the professor who was killed.

Gideon closed his eyes. "Play it again."

" _Charon. I do this for Charon_."

"Again, louder."

Morgan stared at Gideon as he adjusted the sound on the speaker and turned it so it would face him.

" _Charon. I do this for Charon_."

"What is it?" Hotch asked.

"I'm not sure, somethin' about it," Gideon muttered, his eyes still shut tightly.

"Is he saying _Karen_?" I furrowed my brow.

"Is this tape clean?" Hotch asked Morgan.

We split up shortly afterward. Morgan video-called Garcia and asked for her help in cleaning up the recording. Then he met up with Elle and Ellen. I, meanwhile, was out on the quad with Gideon and Reid. The latter was sitting under a shady tree, while Gideon paced. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, watching as some students packed up theirs and their parents' cars and drove off.

"What if the unsub is one of the students leaving?" Reid asked.

"No, he's not done yet," Gideon said confidently. "He's not goin' anywhere. Keep thinkin'."

I crossed my arms over my blouse-clad chest, grasping my opposite shoulders, tucking in my elbows. I was scanning the students from behind my sunglasses.

"You mean out-outside the box?" Reid raised his eyebrows. "'s…That's what Morgan's always telling me. He says that's why I can never beat you at chess."

"Well, he's probably right," Gideon grinned, throwing his hands out to the side.

Reid chuckled silently. "But, I mean, in this situation, what exactly is the box?"

"What do you think, McCarthy?" Gideon turned to me.

"The standard profile of a serial arsonist," I cocked a brow.

"Correct. If everything you know goes in the box, what's left?"

"What you don't know," Reid answered.

"The _unknown_ ," I wiggled my fingers ominously.

"Sometimes you have to get creative. Even if you think it's utterly unlikely, you have to think of things nobody else thought of," Gideon said.

"'You rely too much on precedent, you don't allow for the unexpected'," I echoed his words from the jet. Gideon gave me what I believe amounts to half of a smile.

"Like a stutter," Reid looked up at him.

"Yeah, exactly," he continued pacing.

* * *

Reid and I went back inside, Gideon deciding to look inside one of the academic buildings. The doctor and I met up with Morgan inside our make-shift office room. He was on the phone with Garcia, using a douchey earpiece.

"…Garcia, what the hell is 'ka- _rone_ '?" he asked as I stared at our whiteboard on the easel. Morgan chuckled at something she said. "Most definitely, sweetness—with _Reid_."

I cocked my head, unsure if I even wanted to know what Garcia would most definitely be doing with Reid.

"Bye. Hey, Reid," Morgan called over to said doctor, who was further back in the room than me. "Garcia says it's _not_ Karen, it's actually somethin' more like—"

"Charon," Gideon jogged into the room.

"Charon?" Reid repeated.

"'Charon. I do it because of Charon'."

"It's Hebrew."

"It's God's burning anger."

"Yeah."

"So the motive is now religious?" I asked.

"'Scuse me," Gideon grabbed my elbows and gently pushed me away from the whiteboard so he could start scribbling things down.

"Sorry," I mumbled, noticing that Elle and Hotch had spilled into the room as well.

"Well, you know, i-in a lot of religions, God is related to fire," Reid pointed out.

"Well, Agni is fire in Hinduism," Hotch said. Elle contributed something, but I couldn't make it out. "And the Jews see God as a pillar of fire, and Christians worship God as a consuming fire."

"Okay, so we're looking for a theology major. Maybe he's punishing the other students for their sins," Morgan suggested.

Elle tossed Reid what looked like a plastic container with salad in it.

"I don't want this," he put it on the table.

"What's the most sinful place on campus?" I asked.

"Come on, Mick, when I was in college that was everywhere," Morgan held his arms out in a W-shape.

"Fair enough," I bounced my eyebrows, remembering my days as a criminal justice major.

"A fraternity?" Hotch proposed.

"A campus bar?" Elle threw-out.

"No, 'cause that's not consistent with the previous target," I gnawed on the inside of my check again—I know, bad habits.

"What about the idea of baptism by fire?" Morgan said. "Aren't we all supposed to be tested through fire in _Revelations_?"

"Look, it's good, it's good," Gideon turned away from the whiteboard. "But let's please do not jump to conclusions. Religion might be a part of it, but it's not necessarily the prime compulsion."

"Gideon, _rush_ to conclusions, _jump_ to conclusions, who cares?"

"We are running out of time," Elle said over him.

"Compulsion," Reid started to rub his chin. But I seemed to be the only one who heard him.

* * *

Reid had thought outside of the box and discovered a pattern of threes involving the fires and their victims. He had spoken to Hotch and Gideon about it, and the former had narrowed it down to a surprising conclusion.

It was the girl from the chemistry meeting, Clara Hayes.

"Okay, got it," Morgan hung up his phone as Elle and I followed him down the stairs of the building, two local officers in tow. "Her apartment's off-campus."

"But how is he sure it's _this_ girl?" Elle asked.

"You didn't see her," I told her. "She had a ring on her finger and she kept turning it in intervals of three. She was also really happy to be talking about Molotov cocktails. They can be made with three ingredients and when she told us them, she said the last one three times."

The local cops led us to Clara's apartment and they opened the door to find a creepy site. We lowered our Glocks down once we saw that it was empty. Her room was lit with candles and her walls were covered with handwritten Bible passages about, you guessed it, fire.

"No one in here," one of the officers said, looking out one of her windows, which had a beaded shade over it. He gestured to us to come in with his head. "Clear."

"Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me," Morgan muttered under his breath.

On further inspection, the walls also had pictures of fires on them. In fact, her walls were _papered_ with her pictures and messages. And by papered I mean they were small pieces of paper overlapping each other, like fish scales.

"OCD? I'm thinkin' more like OMG," he added.

"OMG?" Elle asked.

"Oh my God," I translated.

Elle stepped forward and read a particular quote. "'A fire is kindled in my anger and shall burn into the lowest hell', _Deuteronomy_."

"'And again the fire of Heaven came down and killed them all'." Morgan read a different quote.

I looked down and saw that Clara had a picture of Thích Quảng Đức, the Buddhist monk who famously set himself on fire as a protest. Then I looked up at the wall and saw a drawing of Charon, a fiery spirt, ferrying souls to the underworld.

"'I do this for Charon'," I pointed at the picture. "There's the sucker right there. The Greek mythological ferryman of the dead. Basically Hades' river-bitch."

"It's also the name of Pluto's only moon," Morgan said. He started to look at more of her quotes. " _Paradise Lost_. 'Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood of human sacrifice and parents' tears'."

Morgan contacted Reid and asked him about Moloch, then we were made privy to dirty details about Clara Hayes. She'd narrowly escaped a house fire when she was a teenager and her religious fanatic mother described it as a test from God, which exacerbated Clara's OCD. The icing on the cake? Her house was number three hundred and thirty-three.

"Hey, Morgan," Elle said.

"Hmm?" he grunted.

"You know what magical thinking is?" she asked.

"Obsessive thoughts," said the expert on obsessional crimes. "It's like a superstition. It controls them."

"Kinda like, 'step on a crack, break your mother's back'," Elle added.

"Except she actually believes it," Morgan said.

"God tested her with fire, and now when three threes show up around another person, God tells her to test them," I put my hands on my hips and exchanged glances with Morgan before he got another phone call. I was on the hunt for an indication of the next pattern of threes.

"Hey, Hotch, we're lookin', man. I don't think she would'a left behind a day planner that says, 'set next fire here' written in it," Morgan said.

Elle started to look around the room and went to a side doorway that was covered by long beads, just like the windows.

"Yeah—I underst—wait 'til you see this place."

"Uh, Morgan, McCarthy," Elle leaned back and gestured for us to come see.

"I'll call you back," Morgan hung up the phone and met us.

The beads were covering a walk-in closet filled with accelerants and Molotov cocktails.

* * *

"Hey, Gideon," I said into my cell phone after we evacuated the apartment and headed back to campus. Clara had shut down all the school elevators and was preparing for her next fire.

" _I don't have a lot of time, McCarthy, make it fast_ ," he said in a clipped voice. " _We're going to find Clara_."

"Perfect—that's what I need to talk to you about. Clara is likely a good person, someone who never wanted to do anyone any harm, like any other rational person. But there's nothing rational about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. You can't reason with her because you can't reason with a physiological problem. She's not setting these fires because she wants to. She's setting them because she _has_ to," I said quickly.

" _What are you trying to say?_ " Gideon asked.

"Don't try to convince her to stop because you won't be able to."

Gideon was silent for a moment. " _Thank you, McCarthy_ ," he said before hanging up.

We arrived at campus and each took to investigating different buildings, running through them to see if we could find Clara and save her potential victims before anything happened to them. But we were each turning up nothing. Luckily, Hotch managed to get to Clara on the third floor of the science building, where she'd trapped her three teammates in an elevator and had sprayed them down with three accelerants. While Hotch tried to reason with her, against my advice, Gideon shot the girl in the leg and stopped her flare before it rolled into the elevator.

* * *

"You know, I figured it out," Elle said as she and Gideon filed into the jet. I had already settled onto the couch and was going to try to take a nap. "The stutter."

"You know why the Footpath Killer stuttered?" Gideon asked.

"When you and Hotch were talking earlier, that's when I got it. He said he was just trying to stall Clara."

"Right."

"Well, that's it, isn't it? The Footpath Killer. You were just trying to stall him. You said, 'I know why you stutter' because you were buying time. You were stalling. But you don't really know why he stuttered," she shook her head.

"I don't?" Gideon questioned softly.

"I looked it up. No one does."

"There are some theories about a neurological basis."

"But they're just theories," Elle leaned over the table she was sitting at. "What really happened in the convenience store?"

Gideon stared at her for a moment. "I'll tell you what I _do_ know about a stutter: I know how to provoke one."

* * *

 **Hoping you guys are liking this!**

 **I'm going to be skipping around a lot because I'm way too excited to get to Rossi**


	4. Boy's Name

**"Hunter? Huh, isn't** that a boy's name?"

I struggled more trying not to roll my eyes than I did trying to profile the long distance serial killing ER nurse in the case we'd just gotten off of the day before.

"Guess not," I said, faking a cheery smile to the cute man who had been talking to me while I was waiting for my rum and coke at the bar. We'd taken an after-hours BAU catharsis trip, as I like to call it. And by 'we', I mean everyone except for Hotch and Gideon.

The bartender finally handed me my drink and I hightailed it back to our table. Elle was sitting with Garcia, Reid, and JJ. I glanced at the small dancefloor and saw Morgan busting some smooth moves. He, of course, was surrounded by young women. And Garcia was glaring at them.

"If I had a nickel for every person who's asked me if I have a boy's name…" I trailed off, sitting next to the buxom, geeky blonde.

"Oh, I can only imagine," JJ chuckled.

"Implying that names have a specific gender is an entirely human-made construct," Reid said. I would be lying if I said I wasn't surprised that he came out with us. But then I thought that Morgan probably cajoled him into doing it so he could have another guy around.

"'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'," I quoted.

"Aren't names a human-made construct too?" Elle pointed out.

"I wouldn't name my daughter Steve, though," JJ threw a shot back.

"'Ey, Greenaway!"

We all looked up and saw Morgan gesturing to Elle. She smirked and excused herself from our table. She was wearing leather pants and a halter top that showed a lot of her tanned back.

"What's the consensus on her?" Garcia leaned in to JJ and me. The three of us were a pretty tight unit. "Do we like her or not?"

"She's a good agent," I shrugged my bared shoulders. I was wearing a tube-top that covered my torso, but showed off the tattoo on my shoulder. It was a commemoration of a friend I'd lost a long time ago. "I wouldn't hang out with her on my own outside of work."

I held back from mentioning that I was planning on vacationing with her and Morgan later that year. But it was Morgan who was setting that up, and he invited the two of us. If she had been in charge, I think I would have been spending my vacation time somewhere else.

"Yeah," JJ agreed. Then she leaned back and ruffled Reid's hair, saying, "She's no Spence."

Reid smiled and then looked down at his lap. I had a feeling that he had a bit of a crush on her, but was too shy to really do anything about it.

"I also get the feeling that she's only interested in being friendly with Derek," JJ leaned closer.

"I get that same feeling," I chewed on my lip. "Not exactly a 'girl-power' teammate." We'd even invited her to hang out with us a few times in the past, but she'd turned us down.

"It's a good thing she's not interested in joining our girls-night-outs because she's definitely not going to be invited to one again," Garcia's eyes locked on Elle, who was dancing with Morgan. It wasn't anything romantic, but it was still enough to draw Miss Penelope's ire.

"Excuse me?" said a man behind me. I turned to see him. He had blonde hair and an attempt at a beard on his face. "Are you tired? 'Cause you've been running through my mind _all_ night."

I exchanged glances with JJ and tried not to laugh.

"I lost my number, can I get yours?" he continued in a smarmy voice, sipping his drink.

" _Tempting_ ," I said sarcastically. "Maybe you should try another line."

"Do you have any Irish in you?"

"My last name is _McCarthy_ ," I stopped him, knowing where that one was going. "Try again."

The man frowned. He seemed disappointed that he didn't get to ask me if I wanted any Irish in me. "Did it hurt, then?"

I pursed my lips and tried not to laugh in his face. Then I decided to play along, "Did what hurt?"

"When you fell from heaven?"

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Luke," he smoothed his blonde hair back.

"Well, Luke, I don't think the lines are working. But thanks for trying," I gave him a fake smile.

"Come on," he said. "Just one dance."

"I don't think so," I turned away.

"Just one," Luke put his hand on my shoulder.

I whipped my head around, "I don't think you understand what the word 'no' means, but maybe you should figure it out soon."

"No one ever says no to me. I'm a _god_."

"Well, I'm an FBI agent, as is everyone else at this table," I retorted. I looked over Luke's shoulder and saw Morgan coming over, a concerned look on his face. "And I don't think my _boyfriend_ would much appreciate this."

"Boyfriend?" Luke furrowed his brow. "Not anymore, sweetheart. Ten minutes with the Lukester and you'll be in love."

I almost threw up.

"Excuse me, bud," Morgan came over to his side and looked at me. "This guy bothering you?"

"This is your girl?" Luke looked up at Morgan in horror.

"Damn straight that's my girl," the latter folded his muscular arms across his chest.

"…Oh. Well, I was just leaving…"

"Yeah, I bet you were," Morgan watched as Luke all but ran away from him. He looked down at me.

"Thanks for playing along," I smiled. "Some guys just don't know how to take rejection."

* * *

 **Just wanted some cute filler**


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